Unknown gunmen kill 1 policeman in Mosul

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: Unknown gunmen on Thursday killed a policeman in south Mosul, a security source said. “Unknown gunmen shot a policeman dead in al-Mansour district, south Mosul,” a Mosul security source said. “The policeman, an element of the emergency police, was on leave when the gunmen attacked him,” the source noted. Mosul, the provincial capital of Ninewa, 400 km north of Baghdad, is viewed by U.S. and Iraqi authorities as one of the last remaining al-Qaeda strongholds in Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a two-phase military crackdown in the northern city in May. Ninewa officials said the gains from these operations, however, have disintegrated as militant groups re-entered the city there due to an insufficient number of Iraqi troops to maintain security following operations in May. AM (S)/SR 1